Buy mắm tép from Gia Viễn and eat it chưng thịt, the flooded-lowland ferment
A year in earthenware, red-gold
Mắm tép is made from tép riu, the tiny freshwater shrimp of the chiêm trũng, the seasonally flooded lowland of Gia Viễn, roughly 20 km north-west of Ninh Bình city towards Vân Long and Bái Đính. It is salted with roasted rice thính, sealed in earthenware and left to ferment naturally for six months to a year. Nguyễn Thị Lệ Thanh's Thanh Nguyễn workshop, a Gia Viễn native operating from Ninh Bình city, makes the cooked thịt chưng mắm tép version, certified OCOP 4 star in 2021.
Why it's unique
Shrimp pastes are made all over the delta. This one is freshwater rather than marine, fermented with roasted rice thính rather than salt alone, and it belongs to a specific hydrology: the seasonally flooded lowland that made Gia Viễn poor and gave it this one thing.
The long ferment is what you are buying. Six months to a year in earthenware turns it red-gold and thick rather than thin and brown, and the everyday local use is not as a dip at all. It is mắm tép chưng thịt: the paste fried down with minced belly and shoulder pork and dried shallot until the fat runs, eaten with hot rice. The hard part is the flame, because too hot and the shrimp turns bitter.
Before you go
Buy on colour and texture rather than on the label. Good mắm tép is a bright pinkish red with a thick, glossy liquor and a soft rather than sharp smell.
The cooked product runs roughly 280,000 to 330,000 VND a kilo and the raw ferment is much cheaper by the jar. The Thanh Nguyễn kitchen turns out 10 to 20 kg a day, rising to 30 to 40 kg in the winter months when it sells best, so winter is when there is most to see being made. If you take the raw ferment home instead, thin it with lime, garlic and chilli and use it on boiled pork or greens. It travels well sealed. Cash.